Delegates of the Community Practitioners’ Platform – a networking and partnership mechanism promoted by the Huairou Commission and GROOTS International – recently headed to sunny Cancún, Mexico, for the first UNISDR Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction held after the adoption of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR).

In order to better document grassroots women’s leadership in solving issues in their informal settlements, and to understand their priorities in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a team led by Lene Egeli, Global Organizer for Huairou, conducted focus group discussions in two of the biggest slum settlements in Nairobi: Kibera and Mathare.

Emerging from the Africa Regional Meeting as a strong team, the Huairou delegation entered the twenty-sixth session of the UN-Habitat Governing Council (GC26, held 8-12 May 2017) in full force. In the open hallways of the beautiful United Nations Offices in Nairobi, grassroots women leaders from across the region interfaced with diplomats and policymakers with a mission to ensure the urban agency retains and expands its focus on gender and women’s empowerment.

Hosted by Uganda Community Based Association for Child Welfare (UCOBAC) in partnership with the UN-Habitat Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) and the Huairou Commission, grassroots and government leaders convened in February 2017 in Kireka, Uganda, to undergo peer-to-peer learning on pro-poor and gendered land tools.

In partnership with UN-Habitat Global Land Tool Network (GLTN), Huairou Commission and its members in Zambia – People’s Process on Housing and Poverty in Zambia (PPHPZ) / Zambia Homeless, Poor People’s Federation (ZHPPF) and Katuba Women’s Association (KWA) – have led a pilot of the Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM) in Mungule Chiefdom, Chibombo District since September 2015.

The Huairou Commission is proud to participate in the seventh annual International Anti-Street Harassment Week, observed from April 2 to 8. We are joining groups in more than 35 countries who are participating in the awareness-raising week to tackle the prevalent social problem of street harassment.

Working under the priority theme “Women’s economic empowerment in the changing world of work,” thousands of women’s activists gathered in New York from March 14th to 24th for the sixty-first session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW61). The Huairou Commission was delighted to welcome delegates from twelve countries of Africa, Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean. Even though Winter Storm Stella stopped all UN activities for a day, Huairou delegates brought ardent spirit and dedication, meeting all day at the Living Learning Center in Brooklyn to focus on their policy activism and organizing at CSW and beyond.

In the days leading up to the Habitat III Conference, the Huairou Commission hosted an International Grassroots Academy in partnership with our local host in Ecuador, the Luna Creciente Women’s Movement.